Customer Reviews

Wastrels of Defense: How Congress Sabotages U.S. Security

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The Framers of the Constitution, in their efforts to improve an inadequate Articles of Confederation, spent a lot of time worrying about what powers the central government should have and how these powers should be distributed among the branches so that government could perform its essential functions but not threaten the people's liberties. The solution they devised was the system of checks-and-balances familiar to every American high school civics student. Winslow Wheeler's thesis is that after 217 years, that system no longer works.

What he means is that Congress has given up so much of its constitutional power to the executive branch that our system of government has settled into a stable state where Congress is a spectator to - rather than a check upon - presidential power. As Wheeler takes pains to point out, the dollar amounts wasted in pork are not the problem. In FY 2005, pork, that is items placed into the DoD budget by members of Congress, amount to something like $8.5 - $10 billion, which sounds like serious money until you realize that it's shoveled on top of a defense budget that will approach $500 billion (including the costs of Iraq and Afghanistan). And yes, much of that money is coming out of the O&M (operations and maintenance) accounts and so will shortchange our troops of many of the low-tech but essential items they need to survive and do their jobs. This is a travesty, surely, but it's where the money is transferred from, not the amount of pork, per se, that is the problem.

What makes the system stable is what senators and representatives have to do to get their share. Basically, they have to support the existing system or that system will not reward the member when time comes to ladle out pork or choose candidates for the next primary. The system, though, is more than mutual backscratching in the quest for handouts. Members have to demonstrate their loyalty by supporting critical decisions by congressional leaders, the most important of which is the determination of when to employ American military forces. As Wheeler reminds us, the question of when the president can go to war and for how long and what type of authorization he needs, if any, goes all the way back to the debates of the Constitutional Convention in 1787. Since the Tonkin Gulf Resolution under Lyndon Johnson, power over war has shifted strongly to the executive branch, ironically in ways that the framers envisioned might happen and went to great lengths to try to prevent. Despite a small setback under Nixon (due more to his political bungling than any desire to respect the Constitution), this shift continued under George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton, and has reached what appears to be the end state under George W. Bush.

On October 2, 2002, the president requested and on October 10 received congressional authority to go to war with Iraq at the time of his choosing, on whatever grounds he found adequate, and with or without allied support. Congress abandoned its duty to deliberate a declaration of war, or even think cogently about the "specific statutory authorization" required under the War Powers Act. Not one word of the draft sent over by the White House was changed by either the House or the Senate, despite issues with the rationale that were even then becoming apparent. Congressional leaders, for reasons Wheeler enumerates, handed the administration a blank check.

Wheeler is a non-partisan berserker for the Constitution, indicting Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives. He names them and gives the dates that they engaged in their acts of commission and more frequently omission. It is an ironclad case. The real tragedy in Wheeler's book is that we have done all this to ourselves. We are a democracy and we get the government we deserve, so it is up to all of us to deserve better, with our votes and with our support to congressional campaigns. It is time to heed Wheeler's call to get mad and take our country back.

In the immediate aftermath of 9/11 our Senate:

Added $4 Billion in pork projects such as the new army museum in Robert Byrd's state, new parking lots in Ted Stevens stare, a career development center (whatever that is) in Pete Domenici's state.

To pay for it they took $2.4 Billion out of the defense bill's accounts that supported training, weapons maintenance, spare parts (just the things soldiers need most). This was done just as the first American casualties were coming home from the fighting in Afghanistan, some of them in boxes.

How is this done? How is this hidden from the press (or does the press care)? Is this really the best we can do with an elected Government?

Mr. Wheeler spent 31 years working on national security issued for members of the U.S. Senate and the General Accounting Office. He was pressured to resign because of an essay he wrote exposing these antics of Congress.

This book is a summary of the ways that the Senate (and Congress) go about their business as usual while young men are dying.

Edit of 10 Oct 08 to add comment pointing to author's really excellent and detailed summary of what is wrong with Pentagon today (including budget data), and more links.

Edit of 20 Dec 07 to add links.

What the author does in this book is focus on the failings of Congress. What the author does not do is provide a more documented analysis of why and how Congress has become disconnected from the people it is supposed to represent, or why the Executive does not balance Congress when the latter abuse their powers. The "balance of power" is in fact a "balance of pork privileges," and it is this inability, as the author describes it, to focus on all the facts, in an objective way, in order to make the best application of the taxpayer dollar, that cripples Congress (and the Executive).

I've given the author four stars because I disagree with those who would demean his motives. What I read here is consistent with the other books I have read--and my own experience talking to generally witless under-educated staff (because I am not important enough to get to the few who are "top notch"). When the author open his book by pointing out that ***all*** watchdog or balancing elements--the media, the think tanks--have failed to hold Congress accountable, I must agree with him.

The most interesting "thread" within the book has to do with information--what information gets where, who sees it, what do they do with it. At the end, the author concludes, most Members are not doing their homework, and most staffs are too busy focused on inserting partisan advantage and localized pork to actually serve the people of the United States in an effective manner.

The book is unusual in being focused on national security and defense, where the author spent his entire career, and what jumped out at me is that Congress has no grand strategy--Congress, like the Executive, is fragmented into stovepipes and is not able to make thoughtful trade-offs at the big picture level between Diplomacy Information Military Economic (DIME) instruments of national power.

The author is severely critical, and rightly so, I believe, in lambasting the Members for abdicating their Constitutional power to declare war. On page 221 he says that it is clear that Members consider their re-election prospects more important than the need to stand tall and oppose a war they do not support.

The author ends by proposing 12 steps for Congressional reform, among the most important of which is exposure of the truth to the public: no more Congressional Record "revisions," no more secret back-room meetings, no more fake camera shots showing Senators speaking to an empty room; no more lightweight partisan staff shuttling to jobs in the Executive they are supposed to help oversee; no more stone-walling of the press; and no more lobbyists with direct access--only constituents. These are all common sense suggestions that are helpful to the public interest.

The author's last two sentences of the book are most helpful of all: "There is really only one thing that will force members of Congress to perform as best as they are able. That is for the public to have the information to distinguish the good from the bad and the phonies from the sincere."

Public information in the public interest...this is the key.

See also, published since then:
Running on Empty: How the Democratic and Republican Parties Are Bankrupting Our Future and What Americans Can Do About It
The Broken Branch: How Congress Is Failing America and How to Get It Back on Track (Institutions of American Democracy)
Breach of Trust: How Washington Turns Outsiders Into Insiders

New Links 10 Oct 08:
The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism
The Fifty-Year Wound: How America's Cold War Victory Has Shaped Our World
The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic (The American Empire Project)
War is a Racket: The Antiwar Classic by America's Most Decorated Soldier
Vice: Dick Cheney and the Hijacking of the American Presidency

After reading and enjoying the first half of this book, I signed on to read the reviews here. I have come to believe it is a good measure of a book to look at the seriousness of the negative reviews. The one negative review here, so far, is not credible. To criticize a substative critique of our governmental procedures because it is not entertaining, seems shallow. To call a work polemic, is not to say it is untrue.

I highly recommend this work. I will not think the same of the way our congress works or doesn't work because of Mr. Wheeler's insights. His criticisms are bi-partison and concern the procedures of our government.

The section of the book contrasting the development of the War Powers Act to the recent senate approval of the Iraqi war, is worth the price of the entire book.

Much of the book discusses "Pork" issues in the Senate and specifically in defense bills. But the real issue is how such issues corrupt the entire process. To dismiss this issue because the dollar amount spent on "pork" is small in relationship to the entire federal budget, is to overlook the corrosive effect of this matter. This book highlights how prevasive it is in the lives of our members of congress. And that is a fact that is not in the interests of anyone reading this review.

By Alan Caruba
Every patriotic American simply must read Winslow T. Wheeler's new book, The Wastrels of Defense: How Congress Sabotages U.S. Security ($28.95, Naval Institute Press.) Even the Washington Post has published some of his views, such as his August 22, 2004 analysis of the gigantic $416 billion appropriations bill for the Department of Defense in July, which included a mind-boggling $8.9 billion in pork, that is, non-military related spending under cover of helping our fine armed forces.
Wheeler has worked on national security issues for over thirty years, serving members in both the Senate and the House. He also worked nine years in the General Accounting Office, the Congressional watchdog agency. In 2002, he was pressured to resign from the Senate Budget Committee staff because of a commentary he wrote that revealed the extent of self-serving budget-busting going on. He is currently a visiting senior fellow at the Center for Defense Information.
His book is a devastating expose. For example, he writes that, after the September 11, 2001 terror attacks, Senators added $4 billion in "irrelevant and useless projects for their home states to the defense budget. At the same time, they stripped $2.4 billion out of the bill from accounts "that supported military training, weapons maintenance, spare parts, and other military 'readiness' items (just the things soldiers need most) to help pay for the pork. This was done just as the first American casualties were coming home from the fighting in Afghanistan, some of them in boxes."
Wheeler is particularly damning in his description of Sen. John McCain, a former Vietnam war prisoner and hero, who, while loudly decrying the waste, has done nothing to stop or even slow it. Another Senator, Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska, the ranking Republican on the Senate Appropriations Committee, and Wheeler's former boss, Sen. Pete V. Domenici (R-NM), but it is every member of Congress that is involved. "Congress is not just dithering with national security," writes Wheeler, "it is trashing it."
Can you imagine a defense appropriation bill stuffed with money for parking garages, fisheries, and gymnasiums? And this was but a small part of the more than 100 amendments added to the 2002 bill to fund the Department of Defense. "Members of Congress add hundreds, nay thousands, of these home state additions, variously called 'member adds', "congressional' or 'line-items', 'state impacts', or just 'pork' to defense-related legislation each year."
In the process, "a grand total of $1.1 billion in the FY 2003 O&M budget" was added!
And, to be fair, this bill was signed by the President. This isn't just politics as usual. This is politics run amuck! It is the wholesale fleecing of the money taxpayers send the federal government in the belief that it will be wisely and carefully allocated to our defense needs.
Nor can Wheeler be accused of partisan politics. As noted, he has worked for members of Congress on both sides of the aisle and his book meticulously documents this mindless spending on projects that have nothing to do with defense and everything to do with being reelected.
The nation's press has completely failed Americans in its reporting of this grand theft. "Journalists are missing a fundamental story that has far more serious consequences than they appreciate; most do not even understand the process," says Wheeler.
Both the politicians opposing the current war effort and those supporting it are putting the lives of our military personnel in jeopardy along with the successful outcome of the war. The voters returned most of them to office based on their self-serving news releases trumpeting what they are doing for their constituents.
We have found where the real "quagmire" is located. It is in the Congress of the United States of America. What can be done about it? It can be exposed as Wheeler is trying to do and it can be opposed by bringing pressure -- letters, faxes, and emails -- on the members of Congress to stop this highway robbery of the taxpayers money!
Alan Caruba writes a weekly commentary, "Warning Signs", posted on the Internet site of The National Anxiety Center (www.anxietycenter.com).

How does Congress sabotage U.S. security? Wastrels of Defense: How Congress Sabotages U.S. Security is no sensationalist title: it's written by a veteran National Security Advisor to four senators and backed by years of political insider interactions. His is a damning expose arguing that since 9/11, Congress has endangered the nation's security by diverting money from war-fighting accounts to pay for state interests. Meticulous documentation of such actions makes this a winning title not limited to one party or philosophy, but to an overall analysis of Congressional failures.

Drawing from personal experience gained from over thirty years working as a Congressional staffer on Capitol Hill, Winslow Wheeler provides an irritatingly glaring look at how legislation is co-opted via the insertion of substantial amounts of "pork" (wasteful spending). He cites example after example, with great attention to sordid details, of how the legislative process has been corrupted by egomaniacal representatives and senators seeking to ensure nothing more than their own reelection. The names of the not-so-innocent are most definitely not protected, and specific actions are detailed finely.

Using its power of the purse, Congress often foregoes its constitutional responsibility to provide for the common good and instead provides for their own good and the good of those with whom they seek to curry favor. Through the insertion of thousands of very specific budget line items--items that would rarely survive a floor vote on their own merits--into larger pieces of legislation, representatives and senators grab a share of taxpayer funds for their home state constituents. This provides them with fodder for press releases, trumpeting to the masses back home how hard their elected representative is working for them.

Wheeler takes particular umbrage at the Congress's pursuit of pork to the great detriment of our national defense. To wit, he details the many gimmicks and budgetary tricks used blatantly to obscure the real costs of non-requested projects inserted into Department of Defense (DoD) funding bills. Often, the funding for these projects are offset by reducing the military's operations and maintenance (O&M) budget--the very budget that provides for military readiness and ongoing war operations.

There are five essentials of what Wheeler terms the "defense pork system". First, is the extreme control of the system by DoD employees, with little modification by the Congress. Little pork gets added to the defense budget without the tacit approval of key players in the Department of Defense. Having failed to gain approval of a pet project through the executive branch budget process, DoD personnel work through the back door of Congress to get these projects inserted in the final legislation. Second, this process works to make most players happy--DoD gets projects it wants (or at least, can tolerate); members of Congress get funds for projects in their home state or district; lobbyists make a nice fee for getting the language included in the bill; etc. etc.

Third, Wheeler points out that this entire system undermines military effectiveness via the offsetting reductions in the O&M accounts to make room for the pork. Who gets left holding the bag? The American citizen, and the troops who are either already deployed or are in training, are the ones given short shrift in this system. Fourth, this system operates well because there are people who want it to continue, and it is subject to very little oversight. He cites the commonplace circumvention of budgetary statutes, and oftentimes the outright ignoring of required checks and balances.

Finally, he points out that the problem is getting worse, and that the preoccupation with pork is slowly eroding our national security. One need look no further than the morning newspaper to confirm that Wheeler is correct: in the recently passed omnibus appropriations bill, over 8900 home-district and home-state pet projects were included in the bill, and budgetary legerdemain allowed such items as veterans' care, nutrition assistance, and security for political conventions to be reclassified as "emergencies", so that they would not be counted in the total for normal operations.

Other egregious examples of mendacity include:
-How decreases in budgets are really increases, and vice versa;
-Non-emergency emergency spending;
-Congress's desire to be friends of DoD, and the back-scratching relationship that this fosters;
-Reclassification of procurements as leases, thus reducing the current year cost of projects;
-How Congressional hearings are mostly a sham, and how things not said during a hearing get included in the transcript of the hearing
-How members of Congress rail openly against pork, but work tirelessly to bring federal funds back to their home districts...and then shamelessly issue press releases documenting their successes.

So, is there a solution to the problem? Wheeler notes sarcastically that there "exist members (of Congress) who demonstrate occasional spasms of character". He calls these members "mixed breeds", as while they illuminate wasteful spending and work to stop the most excessive examples, they also are not shy about bringing home the bacon to their home constituents...all within reason, of course. As Wheeler puts it, "even among the worst on Capitol Hill, surely there are many who do not kick their dogs every single day".

Surely.

If reform is to be accomplished, it probably lies with these mixed breeds to start the reformation process, and a twelve step program is proscribed. His steps progress from admitting the problem and taking decisive action utilizing existing House and Senate rules, to changing the format of C-Span, reducing Congressional staffs, eliminating federally paid campaign workers, and greatly reducing the power of lobbyists. All are noteworthy goals, but the likelihood of this or any other Congress to implement most--or even any--of these steps would seem unlikely at best.

This book at times is difficult to continue reading, as the instances of political pandering and self-serving aggrandizement--all at the expense of the common taxpayer--leaves one somewhere between nauseous and madder than hell. As a person who was once a party to the very deception and one-upmanship portrayed throughout the book, Wheeler exposes the manner in which Congress and executive branch agencies fleece the taxpayer, doing more harm than good for U.S. national security--all while spinning a story of righteous toil for the good of the nation.

How about General Earl Wheeler, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff? Don't believe everything you heard in the CBS Evening News. Go to the source.

US Congress gave a $67M grant to fund productive employment for former Soviet WMD scientists. $30M of that was spent on salaries of American staffers (including $100K golf fees) $20M was stolen outright by that same American staffers. $10M was paid to close the program down very, very quietly. The remaining $7M was spent to employ about 200 Russians for about a year and to report that the number of the Russians employed was 3370. Russian producer of bioweapons (anthrax, small pox) could not get any money to convert itself as the money it requested was spent to buy an apartment for the American program director. Nobody was punished but the whistleblower. Relevant documents are here: http://nunn-lugar.com/def/

Let me first tell you what I was looking for, and then what this book is all about.

I was looking for something a bit more scholarly, though the title should have tipped me off that this was more of a polemical book along the lines of Bovard's "Farm Fiasco". Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Now about the book: it is written poorly, the prose is wooden. Quite tedious to read because it is written in a polemic but not in an entertaining way. Kind of like the reviews on Amazon that give it five stars. If you dislike that "Soviet style" retoric, then this book is heavy slogging.

As to specifics: mostly anectodal evidence is given of 'pork', but nothing concrete. Adding the numbers, and if you've read Bovard's (a much better writer) expose, you will know that pork is between $1 billion to (at most) $100 billion. Nothing to write home about when the Federal budget is $2500 billion.

Slightly more interesting than the travails of a 50 year old Congressional staffer who apparently knew he was due to retire and started ghost writing under the name "Sparticus" (and the wrinkles of how he got fired are told in this book), is stuff that only a real Washington insider might appreciate: how, for example, the GAO is, despite their popular image as a watchdog, considered by Beltway insiders as incompetent and superficial. Also you can read between the lines and see which Senators are bombastic (Stevens, Domenici) and which the author admires (Jarvis, Kassebaum, and sometimes, in a backhand way, McCain).

A much, much better book about how government operates when it comes to pork is anything by James Bovard (if you like over-the-top bombast mixed with much more fact than this book), or, if you like humor, try "Parliament of Whores" by P. J. O'Rourke, which is actually pretty good in explaning things, besides being funny.